Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün

Gör nice derde esîr olduñ i bî-çâre başum
Bulmadum ḳaldı senüñ derdüñe bir çâre başum
Ṭopraġuñ çünki gözüñ yaşile yoġrulmuş ezel
Biz aña neyleyelüm ey yazusı ḳara başum
Bî-vefâ yâre göñül virdüm ü bilmezlik ile
Kendü elüm ile atdum seni odlara başum
Vây eger güldüre düşmenlerümi yâr baña
Ḳılalar ṭa‘na ṭaşıyla seni biñ pâre başum
Yüzümi ḫâk ideyin gitdügi yollara ḥabîb
Seni hem-ser ideyin baṣduġı ṭaşlara başum
Göre ṭursun bu gözüm bâri ölince yüzini
Kefenin boynına ṭaḳup vara yalvara başum
Bilmezem baḫt-ı siyâhumla nice aġlayayın
Seni ġam ḫânelerinde yine âvâre başum
Müdde‘î nükteleriyle ṣanemüñ ġuṣṣaları
Mihrî'yi öldüre bir gün seni ḳurtara başum

In English

1. See into how many pains you have fallen captive, my poor head; I found no remedy, and your pain remains as it was.

2. O my black-fated head, since your clay was kneaded with the water of your eyes (tears) in pre-eternity, what can we do about it? (This rests on the belief that the human being was created from earth: the lover's dough was kneaded with tears in place of water, so weeping belongs to her very creation. "Yazı" here is the writing of fate, what is written on the forehead.)

3. I gave my heart to a faithless beloved and, in ignorance, with my own hand I threw you into the flames, my head.

4. Alas, if the beloved makes my enemies laugh at me, O my head, they will break you into a thousand pieces with the stones of reproach.

5. Let me turn my face to dust on the roads the beloved has gone; and let me make you, my head, one with the stones she has trodden on. ("Hem-ser" means "equal, peer" and also "bearing the same head"; the head is brought down to the level of the stones her foot has trodden.)

6. At least let this eye keep looking at her face until I die; and let my head go, with its shroud hung about its neck, and plead with her. (To hang the shroud about one's neck means to show readiness for death and to ask for pardon and mercy.)

7. I do not know how to weep with my black fortune, O my head; you go on wandering again in the houses of sorrow.

8. The rival's barbed words and the griefs given by the idol-like beloved will one day kill Mihrî and free you, my head.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The one hundred and fifteenth ghazal (gazel) of the divan has eight couplets (beyit) and is written in the remel metre, in the pattern "Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilâtün Fe‘ilün". Its redif (refrain word) is the word "başum" (my head); the rhyme is built on the sounds "-âre / -ara" before it (bî-çâre, çâre, ḳara, odlara, pâre, ṭaşlara, yalvara, âvâre, ḳurtara). That the words "bî-çâre" (helpless) and "çâre" (remedy) meet in the rhyme of the first couplet places helplessness and the search for a remedy side by side from the first line. The ghazal appears in all four manuscripts and is in the section of the letter mîm. Nothing is known about whom it was written for.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In every couplet of the poem the poet addresses her own head. Here the head is used both as a part of the body and in the sense of "my own being, my fortune"; the meaning carried by Turkish phrases such as "başıma gelenler" (what has befallen me) and "kara başım" (my black head) is the foundation of the poem. That the poet sets her own head before her and commiserates with it is both nida (address) and teşhis (personification): the head falls captive, is thrown into the fire, is broken by stones, goes pleading with a shroud about its neck, and wanders in the houses of sorrow. This continual address gives the ghazal the air of a lament; the beloved and the rival are present in the poem, but the one actually spoken to is the poet herself.

The second couplet is the most heavily loaded place in the ghazal as thought. Resting on the belief that the human being was created from water and earth, the poet says that her own clay was kneaded in pre-eternity with tears in place of water. Gülşen Kaya cites this couplet as the divan's example of the idea that the lover's dough is kneaded with tears. Weeping thus ceases to be a consequence and becomes a fate that comes from creation; the words "yazusı ḳara başum" (my black-fated head) at the end of the line tie this fate to the notion of what is written on the forehead.

In the third and fourth couplets the feelings of guilt and shame come forward. The lover confesses that, by giving her heart to a faithless one, she threw her head into the fire with her own hand; then she fears that if the beloved makes her a laughing-stock to her enemies, her head will be broken into a thousand pieces with "ta‘na taşı", the stones of reproach and blame. The image of the stone takes on an altogether different meaning in the fifth couplet: this time the poet wishes to make her head "hem-ser" with the stones the beloved treads on, that is, to hold it equal to them. "Ser" means head in Persian; the word "hem-ser" both means "peer, equal" and contains the head within it. This is a small tevriye (double entendre) played with the refrain.

The phrase "kefenin boynına ṭaḳup" in the sixth couplet is an old idiom for asking pardon while staking one's life. The poet wishes that her eye keep looking at the beloved's face until she dies, and that her head go and plead with her with a shroud around its neck; surrender here reaches its extreme. The closing couplet (makta) ends with an unexpected reversal. The rival's barbed words and the griefs the beloved gives will one day kill Mihrî, but this death will "free" her head from its pain. That death is presented as deliverance attaches a bitter conclusion to the helplessness that has run through the ghazal from the start. That the one who dies and the one who is freed are the same person is also a logical result of the poet's speaking, from the beginning, by dividing herself in two.

Bibliography

  • Mehmet Arslan (ed.), Mihrî Hâtun Dîvânı, Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları (Kültür Eserleri Dizisi 576), 2018, pp. 111-112, Ghazal 115 (F 56b, M 79a, S 58b, Ü 54b). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gülşen Kaya, Mihrî Hâtun Divânı'nın Tahlili, master's thesis, Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences, Elazığ 2010, p. 272. openaccess.firat.edu.tr